These countries are achieving commercial supremacy along lines that parallel the development of their canal systems. One of the most interesting features of international political economy is the great value one nation will place upon a thing that another people will throw away. What makes the canals of France of such value to the people is their contentment in saving money. The Frenchman has a keen sense of the value of a dollar saved. So long as he can get the product of his acres and the output of his factories at their final destination at the lowest freight cost, without time as an important factor, he is content with canal transportation. He realized that a dollar so saved is to be totaled among his profits and not credited to his savings.
The American, working on the credit system, is obliged to earn the quick dollar, and yet feels the attrition of the nether millstone that gives to the corporate trusts the money that belongs to the small producer. He thus abandons canals that in France would pay the individual as well as the state. The American has but one standard, Do the canals pay? He demands immediate returns, not prospective. Canals have their good and bad years. With such a criticism no canal, as a tax earner, is always successful. This, in brief, was the history of the abandonment of the central New York canals. It is interesting to trace this cause in the profligate dereliction of the lateral canals.
